Top Blog Partners

Stop Kagawa and Arsenal WILL beat Borussia Dortmund

When we watched with baited breath to see who Arsenal would be playing in the group stages of the Champions League this season, all of the softer looking sides got put into other groups and the Gunners got another tough draw. But I am now starting to think that we may have got a bit of luck after all.

Anderlecht are the Belgian champions and you should not take any team that has made it into the group stages too lightly, but they should be the whipping boys. Galatasaray are the biggest club in Turkey and have done well in Europe recently, but there are signs that they are not so good this year.

For one thing, they did not win the Turkish league last season and only managed a draw with Eskişehirspor yesterday. That’s Eskişehirspor! And the bane of our life that is Didier Drogba is no longer their player.

Realistically though, the top two should be Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund. But as we have learned in recent years, the difference between winning the group and coming second is the difference between staying in the competition and going out.

That makes the game in Germany on Tuesday a critical one, but I have good news for you Gooners, because Dortmund are also on the wane, at least for now. This could be the best time to play them in the last five years. They lost their main striker Robert Lewandowski this summer and are also without Marco Reus through injury.

In fact, their main threat seems to be Shinji Kagawa who has returned from his ill fated spell at Old Trafford. Stop him, I reckon, and the Gunners are then facing a pretty ordinary side. So tell Flamini to stick to the Japanese midfielder like a bad smell and the group is ours for the taking.

60 thoughts on “Stop Kagawa and Arsenal WILL beat Borussia Dortmund”

Guys help me out here.
I just bought our puma home kit today.
Its empty at the back. I mean blank.
I asked for a Ramsey 16 kit but they said i would need to write it myself. How the fcuk do i write it myself?
Its looking so awkward.

I had a Rosicky Nike shirt. But it was written from before i didn’t need to write it myself.

We should beat Dortmund. No Reus, no Błaszczykowski, sold Lewandowski. They lack pace and the lethal finishing of a top class striker. They’ve also been on a bad run of late so won’t go into the game with confidence. All our players ,bar Giroud, are fit and we have a good bench if things aren’t working out. For me there’s no excuses. We should win.

Stop Kagawa? Bit arrogant of us!
Dortmund are not a one man team and even though Reus and Lewendoski wont be playing we’ll still have a game on our hands for sure.
I always think BD are a little like a German Arsenal, I’ve seen them take some heavy defeats but on their day they can be one of the best sides around and beat anyone.
Let’s hope they don’t turn up.
Best thing we can do is take the City game attitude and performance into this game.
Being combative, strong and breaking with pace should do it.
If Ozil is going to play and mope around then put him on the bench for Cazorla.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter If you have a dodgy defense as long as you have top fire power with top strikers, awesome CAM and wingers. Case in point: Chelsea and United (Costa, Fabregas, Hazard, Remy, Falcao, RVP, Di Maria, Juan Mata, Rooney)

We have Walcott and Sanchez
All we need is Ozil to play CAM and play top quality AND a prolific striker.

United have been playing pretty well, not outstandingly – 2 of the goals were bad goalkeeping – but are definitely the better team by a distance. United have already dropped 7 points against teams they needed to beat, that will cost them in the end.. As for Liverpool, I can’t see them getting above 4th place this season. We should make the top 4, but at the end of last season, every fan would tell you we should be in the title mix this season. I don’t think we have as strong a squad as Chelsea or City, but we have a chance..

i really expect arsenal to win this match, i actually think we are far better than last season, even without the addition of defensive midfielder and centerback (both desperately needed).

We at present have more healthy numbers, which give us a wider selection of quality and also the ability to rotate players in danger of a muscle injuries brought on by over playing.

Our strike force has increased even with the loss of Giroud we now have a stronger fire power, we now have more finishers in the squad which goes well with the persons who can provide an assist.
Therefore although we have not fix the DM and CB issue we should have enough to leave germany with a victory and put us in the driving seat of our CL group.

@onochie. Please no more talk about Ozil today, Makes me sick how he dripped around the pitch like a sulky petulant kid yesterday. Even if he didn’t run a lot, what concerned me was whenever he got the ball he moved it on quickly with a short simple pass, like he didn’t want to be involved, lacking confidence? unfit?

Fight for 4th place will be fierce. Man might not have the best defence but they certainly have boast the best attacking players in the league. Liverpool will certainly give it a fight. Man City and Chelsea got depth in their very impressive squads.

Fight for 4th place will be fierce. Man U might not have the best defence but they certainly have boast the best attacking players in the league. Liverpool will certainly give it a fight. Man City and Chelsea got depth in their very impressive squads.

Off topic, Di Maria is awesome in MU – QPR match. Does anyone think that when Wenger played waiting game last season, he expects to sign Di Maria instead of Ozil. It is Ancelotti who eventually decide that he prefer to keep Di Maria to Ozil. Given that Wenger knows Fabregas may want to leave this season, getting Di Maria last season making much more sense than Ozil.

I have no hate towards Ozil. We should support whoever play for us and feel merit that we have such talented player in our team. But it does not stop from wondering what if we have Di Maria and Fabregas, will we perform better than now?
Also think Wenger used to be calculative in transfer dealing, and getting Ozil when we have nearly identical player in Carzola is not the smartest move at that time, which now force him to field at least one of them on the wing.

I hear you but it is just too easy to start longingly looking over to the lush green grass on the other side and start to covet form players of the moment or the ones that make an instant impact. It hasn’t been glory and adulation all the way; both Fabregas and di Maria have had tough times in Spain and there have been times when neither could hold a candle to Ozil in La Liga. We need the wheel to turn again and for MO to re-emerge – if he can perform to just 90% of his ability on a consistent basis then we won’t be looking around anymore at who everyone else has quite so much.

The very day we signed ozil I said the same thing di Maria would have been perfect on the left and santi would be played through the centre, but I appreciate ozil contribution last season he was pulling the string whilst we were at our best

Kagawa is a good player but I have never actually rated him that highly, he shouldn’t be too hard to stop. In my opinion our weak links in our team are Mertesaker, Flamini, Arteta and occasionally Szszesny. We need a new centre back and DM certainly next summer. I do really like Szszesny, it’s just he gets too over confident of his number 1 spot and complacent. He’s a good keeper and has his best years ahead of him which is why he won the Golden Glove last season of course, I’m just glad we brought in Ospina to push him for the number 1 spot. We also need to stop pushing our full backs up so high up the pitch, that’s why we got thrashed away to the big teams last season, notice how most of their goals were on the counter? Leaving huge amounts of space for their wingers to run into and score against us because our full backs were so far up the pitch…